Possibly, most of you who found my blog spot, may be asking yourselves, “Who is this Mrs. Dalloway chick?”

Mrs. Dalloway is the name of one of my favorite heroines. Not because she is a damsel in distress, or because she is a love sick, cliched version of myself. No, Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway is the embodiment of all that women hold sacred. She is free thinking, free flowing, head strong, free willed, beautiful because she is well spoken and well read. She stands (figuratively) taller than the rest because she doesn’t need anyone to lean on.

However, in reading Mrs. Dalloway, we learn how intricately our past is twisted into our future; like ivy overtaking the walls of a house, they twist and knot so as to not be undone. So to is the day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway. As she starts her day, the book opens with this, my favorite line: “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” I love this opening line. In order to taste how pointed this is, one must know how much like Clarissa Dalloway her author, Virginia Woolf was. Clarissa could have rang her husband at work, or made a note to herself to ask him to “swing by” the florist on his way home from work and pick up some flowers for her party, but she didn’t. She decided to get them herself. That is strong. That is Independence. Not that Clarissa didn’t trust her husbands taste, rather, it was her party; she was the hostess, she was making the plans, it only made sense for her to do the job herself. Virginia Woolf made a point of writing about the suppression of women, in all aspects of daily life. Most often her female characters would live lives contrary to the everyday way of thinking, just as she herself lived. Virgina Woolf, in my opinion, lived at time when the feminist movement was pure, and wholesome; not like it is today. Being able to have her female character live a life, where she was able to decide something as simple as to buy the flowers herself, was a big deal then. Not all women could choose the flowers themselves, but Clarissa Dalloway could, and that is the poetry and mystery of both, Mrs. Dalloway and Virginia Woolf.

The story of Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway was written by Virginia Woolf in 1925. The novel is the chronical of a single day in the life of Mrs. Dalloway.  The novel’s story is of Clarissa’s preparations for a party of which she is the hostess. With the interior perspective of the novel, the story travels forwards and back in time, and in and out of the characters’ minds, to help construct a complete image of Clarissa’s life and the inter-workings of the social structure of that time.

So, if your interest is peaked, check out this little, but mighty book. You might not like it as much I, and that is fine with me,  at least you tried.